The 2000s singer Jack Black was terrified to work with: “He’s a legend, he’s my idol”
Due to being such a comedy legend, people often forget how good a singer Jack Black truly is.
If you ever want to watch a crowd be stunned into silence, watch the end of Tenacious D’s performance at Rock Am Ring in 2016. They were performing shortly after Prince died, and during a section where Black usually does an improvised vocal run, the singer instead opts for an impromptu acapella rendition of ‘When Doves Cry’.
This is a crowd who have gone to watch Tenacious D, who write great songs, sure, but for the most part are a comedic act who like to tell jokes and inject humour into their music. However, during these 90 seconds, everyone in earshot stands in awe as Black delivers a heartfelt ode to the Purple One and reminds the world just how powerful a vocalist he is.
His excellent vocals have ensured that Tenacious D are one of the more successful rock bands in the modern age, and have also made a number of equally talented musicians want to collaborate with Black. Over his career, the rock lover has worked with the likes of Slash, Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and many more.
He’s never been afraid to call out his heroes. Anyone remotely invested in the taste of Jack Black will know that his favourite band of all time is Led Zeppelin; however, his adoration for them didn’t stop him from attempting to reach out. After wrapping filming on his breakout film School of Rock, he filmed a plea to Led Zeppelin asking them for permission to use the track ‘Immigrant Song’. Led Zeppelin are famously hesitant to let people use their music, but this bold move by Black got things over the line.
“I begged them on video with a huge audience of extras in the movie theatre that we were shooting in, and they all chanted with me: ‘Led Zeppelin, please bless us with your love!’” recalled Black, “I don’t remember what I said, it was ridiculous and off the top of my head, and he sent it over there to them to England, and it worked.”
So, Jack Black had the talent and the gumption. What kind of collaboration could ever make him nervous? Well, it turns out that came when the opportunity to work with his namesake (sort of) came up. Ever since it was discovered that there was a Jack Black and a Jack White making music, there have been fans calling for a collaboration, and that eventually came about when the two agreed to team up.
Given it was such a historical team-up, Black wasn’t happy with the idea of them just covering someone else’s song. Instead, he was adamant that the two of them would write a new track together. They put their heads together and came up with the Tenacious D song ‘Don’t Blow It Kage’, which is a pretty solid listen, and was famously the byproduct of Black’s nervousness surrounding working with Jack White. Despite having such a standing in the musical world, even legends like Black get starstruck every now and then.
“He’s a legend, he’s my idol. I love Jack White… But there also was terror, because you don’t wanna let Jack White down,” said Black, “’What are we gonna do? We can’t just record one of our old songs, we gotta write a new song.’ So we wrote a song about how terrified we were to go rock for Jack White and it’s called: ‘Don’t Blow It Kage’.”
